1 by Michael E. Veal avia l 
AZZ IN TRANSITION, 1968 - 19711 
In the evolution of modern jazz, Miles 
Davis is central but controversial. From 
his arrival in New York City in 1 945, Davis| 
participated in the bebop movemen 
alongside Charlie Parker, helped initiatel 
the 'cool' jazz movement in the mid- 
1 950s, hebed pioneer 'modal' jazz in the 
p -• 
late 1950s with John Coltrane and the 
'First Great Miles Davis Quintet7, and 
stretched the boundaries of jazz composition 
and improvisation in the 1 960s with 
he 'Second Great Miles Davis Quintet7. 
[But when he began to integrate electric 
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instruments and elments 
of popular 
iongs into his music 
round 1 968, Davis 
(initiated a bitter depate 
among musi- 
:ians, scholars, crit- 
|ics, and audiences 
bout the relationhip 
between jazz 
nd popular music. 
Davis panderling 
to commercial 
rends, or was he 
Imerely updating 
|jazz's long-standing 
radition of 
Irefashioning popular 
songs as vehicles 
"or improvisation? 
Even though the era of "jazz-rock fusion" had effectively 
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ended by the early 1980s, the debate has persisted to the I 
present. Fusion intensified the conflict generated by Ornettel 
Coleman, Cecil Taylor, and other creators of 'free-jazz' in the 
1960s. Jazz has arguably never recovered from the schism 
produced by the fusion and free movements. Both innovations 
combined to lay waste to what might be thought of as 
the 'linear historical narrative' of jazz, which in most accounts 
stretches from New Orleans around 1 900, through Kansas 
City in the 1930s, to New York in the 1950s. 
The stereotypical narrative of fusion music holds that 
when Davis began to change the sound of his music during 
1968 and 1 969, all of his former bandmembers in the 'Second 
Great Quintet' (with the exception of bassist Ron Carter) 
followed suit, and went on to form commercially-motivated 
fusion bands to great economic success and tragic aesthetic 
consequences. In this narrative, the success of former Davis 
pianist Herbie Hancock's 'Chameleon' (1974) and Weather 
Report's 1975 'Birdland' (the group was co-founded by two 
former Davis sidemen, Wayne Shorter and Josef Zawinul) came 
to epitomize the commercial highs and aesthetic lows to which 
the jazz tradition had been dragged by the mid-1970s. This 
same line of reasoning can be applied to Davis himself; although 
he fell short of the commercial successes of his former 
sidemen while avoiding their artistic compromises, his gestures 
became progressively less subtle by the time he went 
into semi-retirement in 1975. The music and ensemble playing 
on albums like Agharta and Pangaea (both 1 975) remained 
brilliantly inventive for those willing to follow Davis 
into his dark, foreboding soundscapes of heavily distorted 
Afro-funk, but Davis's own playing seemed spent of energy 
— devoid of much of the grace and understatement that listeners 
had long associated with him. 
This narrative places fusion music and acoustic jazz in 
direct opposition. On one side stands an ideal of aesthetic 
purity revolving around a constellation of canonized African- 
American aesthetic traits, and on the other stands a degenerate 
hybrid, based upon marketplace calculations and the 
ephemeral fashion trends of American youth culture. This 
dualistic view of the relations connecting jazz, popular song, 
and electronic instrumentation has prevailed for years, ignoring 
the subtleties and gradations of what was in reality a fluid 
process. A more illuminating perspective might articulate these 
connections as a complex interplay between the two styles, 
resulting in various fusions from the most commercial types of 
easy-listening jazz, to the most rarefied types of experimental, 
improvisational pop music. 
The persistence of the critical divide is evident in recent 
appraisals of fusion music and its place within the broader 
scope of jazz history. Prominent voices in the debate have 
included the neo-conservative music critic Stanley Crouch, 
who dismissed Davis as a 'sellout' in and on the pro-Davis 
side, the Village Voice columnist Greg Tate, who sparked the
The Art of Miles Davis, All My Brothers and Sisters 
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I ©Jan Persson 
[revisionist appraisal of Davis's electric music in 1983 with his 
(two-part article in Down Beaf titled 'The Electric Miles'. In 
l l 995, Peter Watrous linked 'A Jazz Generation and the Miles 
JDavis Curse', arguing in the New York Times that Davis's 
•electric experiments had resulted in the wasting of an entire 
(generation of jazz talent. The British jazz historian, Stuart 
(Nicholson took a less melodramatic view. He conceded that 
(many of the creators of fusion had admirable aesthetic motives 
initially, but that the movement's radical promise was 
(blurred by a lack of conceptual clarity, on one hand, and the 
(gradual commercialization of the genre, on the other. 
Conspicuously absent in much of the fusion debate has 
|been much substantial discussion of the music itself. The situation 
gradually began to change with the publications of Tate's 
(articles, Jack Chambers two-volume epic Milestones (1985), 
(a host of articles and liner notes accompanying the gradual 
(reissue of Davis's electric work, and most significantly, the 
(publication of Paul Tingen's recent Miles Beyond (2001), which 
(focuses exclusively on Davis's electric music. But developments 
outside the world of scholarship and criticism have 
|also inspired the reappraisal of his 1970s work. 
One such catalyst has been the emergence of a younger 
I mainly African-American) generation of'neo-conserva- 
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tive' jazz musicians (such as the Marsalis brothers) who have 
attempted - with much corporate support and spin control - 
to legitimate jazz by grounding it in a classicized version of 
African-American aesthetics. The neo-conservative triumph 
has led to the increasing institutionalization of the music, to 
the creation of repertory bands around the country, and has 
allowed jazz to be given its proper due as 'America's classical 
music'. But the original works emerging from this movement 
are unlikely to be judged as historically significant. Conceived 
within a narrow conceptual vacuum and largely severed from 
the folk roots of the African-American community, they pale 
when compared to the most innovative works of the 1960s 
and 1970s (including some works produced by free and fusion 
musicians), when African-American musicians were striving 
to redefine musical and cultural reference points, contribute 
their music as a solution to the challenges confronting 
society, and/or even to make a buck in a particularly novel 
way. Those who criticize fusion for its commercialism fail to 
note that the corporate music agenda underwrites the neoconservative 
movement in a much more insidious and destructive 
way. Hindsight may allow us to laugh off some of the 
excesses of free and fusion, but it is doubtful whether we will 
laugh at the way the music mega-corporations have effec-
I ©David Redfem 
I 
tively killed jazz as an organic African-American art form by 
marginalizing the innovators of the last 40 years (a process 
scandalously confirmed in Ken Burns' recent PBS documen- 
I tary). Yet the very stodginess of the neo-conservative revival 
has galvanized the impulse towards innovation among younger 
musicians. The canonization of classical jazz has stimulated 
I a search for alternate reference points, including those found 
in the music of the last four decades — much of which is yet 
I to be integrated into the accepted language of jazz practice. 
Apart from the reaction provoked by neo-conservative 
I classicism, another musical trend has directly promoted the 
reassessment of Davis's music (and other free and electric 
I music of the period). In recent years, a host of popular styles 
have either fused the improvisational impulse with electric 
I and/or electronic instrumentation, or used the recording stu- 
I dio as a creative tool, combining improvisation with advanced 
(usually digital) studio manipulation. Into this continuum fall 
Ian array of genres and sub-genres as diverse as rap/hiphop, 
the types of improvisational 'post-rock' played by rock 
bands that have emerged in the wake of the demise of the 
[Grateful Dead (Phish, Medeski, Martin & Wood, Aquarian 
Rescue Unit, Isotope 21 7, Tortoise), so-called 'electronica' 
composers (such as Squarepusher, AphexTwin, and Photek), 
y 
and various experimental rock artists (Sonic Youth, Keiji HainoJ 
Elliott Sharp, among others). In combination, these styles have 
mounted a substantial challenge to jazz as the cutting edge oi| 
contemporary improvised music. They have also stimulated i 
reappraisal of music which can be considered a stylistic pren 
cursor. One of the most important is the electrified jazz of the 
1970s. 
These recent trends suggest that the 'fusion' label may 
be ultimately little more than a marketing tag which is inadequate 
to describe a complex process of stylistic interplay. Con-| 
temporary musicians realize that, in fact, there is much to I 
learned from at least some of this frequently scorned music 
and, most importantly, much that can be profitably reconcile 
with the jazz tradition. But why has this realization taken sc 
long?
The destruction of the linear jazz narrative and its relatively 
stable reference points made it difficult for audiences] 
scholars, and critics to appraise fusion music, even in retro-] 
spect. The languages of bebop, cool jazz, modal jazz, anc 
post-bop did not provide critics with the necessary conceptual 
tools to decode the complex chain of references in the music] 
Further, the appraisal of jazz in the fusion era - and of music 
of that period in general - is not a purely aesthetic issue; the
lusical innovations of the 
sriod were intimately tied to 
volatile social and political 
currents. Consider three musicians 
of the 1 960s who influenced 
Davis: Jimi Hendrix, 
John Coltrane, and James 
iBrown. One cannot separate 
rhe guitar virtuosity of Hendrix 
rrom the spectacle of his 
feigning sexual intercourse 
vith his guitar before destroying 
it by fire at the Monterey 
Festival in 1967, a ritual suffused 
with race, rage, and 
sexuality. One cannot appreciate 
Coltrane's position as 
|the reigning jazz virtuoso of 
lis generation without confronting 
his later work, in 
vhich he deconstructed every 
conceivable norm of the jazz 
|tradition through the influences 
of world music, an 
ecstatic, pan-religious spirituality, 
hallucinogens, and 
ie politicized free-jazz innovations 
of the younger generation. 
One cannot appreciate 
Brown's innovative synthesis 
of funk music elements 
af African, Afro-Cuban, gospel, and jazz, without also considering 
the furor raised by his embrace of politicians such as 
Richard Nixon, or the extortion he allegedly suffered at the 
lands of the Black Panthers. 
mercialism fail to 
The music of the 1 960s and 1 970s reflected a period, 
an era when Americans grappled with several extremely volatile 
internal crises, a historical moment which has subsequently 
3n caricatured in public discourses as right-wing ideologues 
sek to exorcise the demons of counter-cultural politics. Resuscitating 
the music involves the partial re-opening of social 
Dunds which have never completely healed, and which many 
lericans are reluctant to revisit. This is one probable reason 
|for the dearth of scholarship on the fusion era. 
With respect to Davis's music in particular, another obstacle 
to serious reflection is the weight of his legend. Map- 
Ding Davis and his work onto the cultural conflicts of the 1960s 
and 1970s, one might argue that his remaking of his music 
aralleled his remaking of his personal image in accordance 
vith the flamboyant models suggested by Hendrix, Brown, and 
ily Stone. But if it is true that Davis's musical transformation 
gradually provided the soundtrack for his notorious and probnote 
that the corporate 
music 
agenda underwrites 
the neo-conservative 
movement \n a 
much more <fttsidiuos 
and destru2|pr 
way. 
formances which use the technical virtuosity of jazz to pro-I 
duce a'technically-sophisticated popular music ('jazz-rockl 
fusion'), jazz-based performances which aspire to compete! 
with pop songs in the commercial marketplace ("instrumen-l 
tal pop"), and performances which utilize electric instruments! 
and integrate popular elements according to the established! 
procedures of modern jazz ('electric jazz'). This idea of elec-l 
trie jazz also centers around the practice of collective (rhythml 
section) improvisation, an important distinction between seri-| 
ous jazz and its more commercial variants. . 
This last category is most effective in the evaluation ofl 
Davis's music of 1968 -1971, a period of astonishing, com-l 
pressed activity for him. The 'electric jazz' appellation is ad-l 
mittedly arbitrary and amorphous but for my purposes, it helps! 
to underscore a crucial point. While electric jazz relies on! 
electric instrumentation, it retains the traditional small-bandl 
emphasis on improvised interaction among the members ofl 
an ensemble. This practice can be traced all the.way back to| 
the roots of jazz in turn-of-the-century New Orleans. 
Although the approaches Davis took on F/l/es de K///-I 
manjaro were prefigured by earlier quintet trdeks such asj 
Those who criticise 
fusion for its comlematic 
relationships with! 
women, drugs, crime, andl 
blackness, it is also true thatl 
this was a gradual process.! 
Between 1968 and 1971,1 
Davis was, by all accounts,! 
healthier than he had been! 
in years - largely abstaining! 
from meat, drugs and alco-l 
hoi, travelling with a per-j 
sonal trainer and health! 
food cook, and arguably! 
playing the strongest trum-1 
pet and most provocative! 
music of his career. 
Still, Davis's electric! 
legacy raises a fundamen-l 
tal musicological question:! 
Is it possible to take the! 
small-band jazz conception! 
as it existed in 1 968, recon-l 
cile it with the influences ofl 
musicians such as James! 
Brown, Jimi Hendrix, Slyl 
Stone, Ravi Shankar, and! 
Karlheinz Stockhausen, andl 
arrive at a result which can! 
still be considered part of the! 
jazz tradition? The answer! 
requires a preliminary set ofl 
distinctions between per-l
|Eighty-One', 'Fun' and 
"Stuff," the recording was 
i clear point of departure. 
|Both Davis's band and his 
iusic were in a state of 
transition, clearly working 
poward the integration of 
Dop song materials and 
electric instruments by com- 
Ibining the elastic interpretation 
of the second quinket 
with the repetitive structures 
of rock and rhythm 
3nd blues. The first half of 
[the recording ('Felon Brun', 
[Tout de Suite', 'Petits 
Aachins') continued the elliptical 
approach of the second 
quintet, but the second 
side was a clear point of 
departure. 'Mademoiselle 
fabry' is Davis's (and an 
jncredited Gil Evans') 
reharmonization of Jimi 
IHendrix's 'Wind Cries 
fary'. The track is at once 
pluesy and abstract, a 
somewhat more cerebral 
version of the music Can- 
|nonball Adderley was recording 
at about the same 
pirne, on albums such as Country Preacher. Kilimanjaro's title 
pack combines a proto-rock backbeat with a modular, freerime 
melody that floats above the rhythm and provides an 
abstract interpretation of the folk material underneath. On 
Ithis LP and the other studio tracks recorded during 1 968, the 
Focus shifted from composing horn themes on top of chord 
structures, to composing rhythm section patterns with melodies 
assuming an almost secondary role at times. 
The promise here was that the repetitive structures of 
pock, and rhythm and blues could simultaneously provide new 
Durce material forthe abstractions of the quintet, while groundling 
it in the earthier, vernacular idioms of the street. Kilimanjaro 
and the other transitional studio pieces of 1 968 (found 
3n albums such as Water Babies) reflect the promise of the 
3rly experiments in electrified jazz, had they not become misguided 
by unrealistic market expectations and dreams of pop 
[stardom. 
Several months later, Davis produced In A Silent Way. 
The album jacket proclaimed "Directions in Music by Miles 
Davis" and the music contained within certainly represented 
i clear change in direction. There are four significant stylistic 
departures on In A Silent Way. First is the sense of harmonic 
lese recent trends 
suggest that the 'fusion' 
label may be ultimately 
little more thai 
a marketing tag which 
is inadequate to describe 
a complex process 
of stylistic interplay. 
Contemporary 
musicians realize that 
in fact, there is much 
to be learned1 rom at 
least some o1 
frequently sco! 
music... 
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a dispute with Davis in the studio, the cymbal-heavy work! 
provides a suspended, atmospheric element that is unlike most! 
jazz of its time, and more akin to the reflective tendencies of] 
some psychedelic music. Finally, the overall mood of the music! 
is more pastoral than anything else — emotionally and exis-l 
tentially, a clear departure from the "blues impulse" at the| 
roots of much jazz music. 
More than Silent Way, Bitches Brew (1970) is a land-l 
mark, not because it was the highest-selling jazz album of its! 
time, but because it successfully transmuted the influence ofl 
world music traditions, and the more general mood of 1960sl 
psychedelia, into jazz via the influences of modal jazz and! 
rhythm-and-blues. Forthe most part, the album adopts the! 
same atmospheric approach that characterized Silent Way.t 
The songs themselves are mostly built from the same types ofl 
modal vamps as the earlier LP, but these structures are elabo-l 
rated here by the increased chromaticism of the playing and! 
the more active drumming of Jack DeJohnette, who replaces! 
Tony WiHiams. The album's visionary but irreverent qualities! 
were reflected in the way the post-production deconstructed! 
the illusion of the recorded jazz performance as a real-time| 
performance document, in the way Abdul Mati Klarwein's cover 
stasis; both of the side-longl 
pieces are built on one-chordl 
vamps in which a droning! 
tonal center (played mainly byl 
electric pianos) is emphasized! 
over the more standard cycle! 
of moving chords. More than! 
anything else, this probably re-l 
fleets the subtle (and then-j 
popular) influence of Indian! 
music. The second important! 
change is the foregrounding! 
of the electric guitar, played! 
here by British guitarist John! 
McLaughlin. McLaughlinl 
plays in a style completely un-l 
related to the standards of jazzl 
guitar in the 60s (players such! 
as Wes Montgomery, Jim Hall,I 
and Joe Pass would be the! 
foremost exponents), garnish-l 
ing the music with finger-l 
picked melodies which recall! 
the most traditional forms ofl 
blues and folk music, as well] 
as the Indian influence. The! 
third departure is Tony| 
Williams's drumming; uncharacteristically, 
he propels! 
the music with his cymbal workl 
alone, eschewing his usual! 
combative, interruptive ap-l 
proach. Although Williams'! 
restraint was later attributed tol
• illustration offered a post-modern vision of tribal Africa re- 
Ifracted through the lens of Afro-inflected psychedelia, and in 
| Davis's resolutely secular take on the brand of jazz mysticism 
[that had been associated with John Coltrane — hence the 
lalbum's title. 
Essentially sonic collages, both Bitches Brew and Silent 
I Way are notable as works of studio post-composition in which 
[the role of the studio is foregrounded through audible splices 
[and tape loops. In this sense, the works prefigure electronica 
I in the use of the recording studio as a creative tool and an 
[audible component of the creative process. Crafted by producer 
Teo Macero from hours of studio jams, these albums 
[partially reflect the producer's training in the tape-splicing 
I procedures of experimental classical music. Maceros's work 
[essentially fuses the best moments of these jams into a new 
[composition and as recent, expanded editions of these LPs 
[abundantly illustrate, little of the newly-issued (and unedited) 
[raw material can compare with the previously-available mu- 
|sic. 
The recently issued It's About That Time (Live at the 
|F//lmore Easf, March 7, 1970) presents the famed (and un- 
| der-recorded) 'lost quintet' (saxophonist Wayne Shorter, electric 
[pianist Chick Corea, bassist David Holland, and drummer 
[jack DeJohnette, augmented here by percussionist Airto 
[Moreira). This group is considered by some critics to be Davis's 
['third great quintet', though others have criticized the 'third 
[...' tag, arguing that unlike the first and second great quintets, 
the third quintet band created no original repertoire of 
[their own to stake their place in the canon of recorded jazz 
| works. But this is not entirely true, since this group was actually 
a paired-down version of the studio ensemble that Davis 
I had used for the recording oi Bitches Brew. In concert, they 
[played music previously recorded and performed by the first 
[and second quintets, as well as music that was unique to 
|their configuration. 
The Fillmore recording demonstrates that the strength 
[of this band lay not merely in their original compositions, but 
[in their powers of interpretation. The radically deconstructive 
[treatments of previously recorded works belong to a process 
[which Davis and his second quintet had gradually redefined 
[since their famed sets recorded at Chicago's Plugged Nickel 
[in 1965. The difference is that if the second quintet stretched 
[song form to its breaking point, the third quintet pushed the 
[same material past that point. Shorter offers the elliptical the- 
| matic and improvisational statements traceable to the same 
[Plugged Nickel dates, on which he stretched himself far be- 
[yond the boundaries of the quintet's studio dates. Corea offers 
an overwhelming density of ideas, made articulate through 
[his astonishing technical virtuosity. Holland (alternating be- 
[tween upright and electric bass) infused the music with a sense 
[of rock and r&b, his funky bass ostinati abstracted into 
[minimalist gestures, while drummer Jack DeJohnette shows 
[why he was Davis's ideal drummer in the early 1970s. He 
[alternately provides a soundstream of abstracted rhythm in 
[the manner of Tony Williams, or holds down the groove with 
[the Buddy Miles approach that had so captivated Davis upon 
hearing Hendrix's Band of Gypsys set. Meanwhile, Moreiraj 
provides an eclectic range of coloration in a style that prefig-l 
ures the broader integration of world percussion traditions! 
into American music. 
Then there is the electric element. On the same Fillmorel 
stage where Hendrixand his Band of Gypsys had completely! 
redefined the possiblities of the electric guitar three months| 
earlier (for example, in 'Machine Gun'), the group matchedj 
Hendrix's intensity with a fierce set of abstracted, electrified) 
jazz. Whereas the studio Bitches Brew set was as much al 
creation of the studio as it was a document of an actual 
performance, the band used the Fillmore gigs to showthe| 
way this music could be handled live. A more explicit en-| 
gagement with the language of free-jazz than Davis had pre-1 
viously allowed in his groups, the free element is filtered) 
through electronic experimentation to produce some of the! 
most provocative live jazz ever recorded. Unedited and! 
untampered by the post-production, the Fillmore recording is| 
by far the best set of live Miles from the 1 970s. 
After this period, Davis would field one last great band! 
drawn primarily from the ranks of jazz players, with saxo-l 
phonist Gary Bartz, pianist Keith Jarrett (making a one-timel 
appearance on electric keyboards), and a rhythm section an-| 
chored by DeJohnette, ex-Motown bassist Michael Henderson! 
and percussionists Mtume and Don Alias. Their work can| 
currently be found on Davis's 1 971 recording Live Evil (Co-I 
lumbia C2K 65135) but a comprehensive, multi-disc over-| 
view of their live work is said to be in production. 
The use of electric instruments and pop song structures! 
facilitated the integration of new textures and a new generaj 
tion of folk materials into jazz. This, of course, is what mod-| 
ern jazz had historically done - subjected materials from the| 
folk and popular traditions to the improvisational processes) 
of high art abstraction. But the split that fusion created among I 
jazz musicians damaged this long-standing interpretive pat-l 
tern. Since the fusion era, jazz musicians attempting to strad-j 
die these divisions have produced heavy-handed efforts whichl 
themselves only reflect the hardening of commercial, sociall 
generic, and ideological borders. The precarious equation ofj 
modern jazz, free-jazz, experimental music, world music, and! 
popular music that prevailed in the 1970s was effectively lost! 
without the detailed manipulations of form, texture, and dyf 
namics which were central to jazz's refashioning of the pop! 
song. And those textures were themselves reflections of al 
broader social texture, the texture of a society willing to ques-f 
tion some of its fundamental premises, and to fashion novel 
responses in art. Still, we can hope that a revisiting of this! 
music will allow musicians, critics, scholars, and audiencesL 
to ponder the relevance of the procedures Davis set into mo-P 
tion to the long-term evolution of the jazz tradition, and tol 
open a space for a body of musical strategies that couldj 
prove crucial to a stagnant art form.GR 
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